In Ontario law office, Adelanto business conducted. Some question why

Shea Johnson Staff Writer @DP_Shea

Saturday

Feb 24, 2018 at 5:14 PM

ONTARIO — Inside the multi-room office of Best Best & Krieger, a spacious work station for Adelanto City Attorney Ruben Duran near the airport, the break room offered a savory spread for attendees: tacos, taquitos and even churros.

Outside the building, one of a handful of visitors who had traveled the 40 to 50 miles from the Victor Valley to be kept apprised of the latest city development would be forced to circle the facility twice before a guard appeared inside and opened a locked door.

The special closed session meeting Feb. 20, in the building's fourth floor, began at 5:30 p.m., but apparently showing up shortly after 6 p.m. meant a security escort to gain entry and to use an elevator to get upstairs.

The City Council, along with Duran, a peer attorney, Howard B. Golds, and interim City Manager G. Michael Milhiser, were reviewing this evening a third-party investigator's report into sexual harassment accusations lodged by two women against suspended City Manager Gabriel Elliott.

Elected officials were also evaluating Elliott's job performance, and there were rumblings he could be fired. Naturally, the meeting attracted considerable concern, but some believed that interest would have been more illustrative in the turnout if only the meeting had occurred at home.

"I have some thoughts and I really don't know the answers," Planning Commissioner Joy Jeannette said, speaking from a side office room. "But one of the things I'm just wondering is, you're not going to have a fair representation of the people that would like to address what's going on today."

Jeannette was one of several who made the trek to Ontario — no more than a single-digit contingent including economic development consultant Jessie Flores, Commission Chairman Chris Waggener and Terry Delgado, a regularly vocal resident inside council chambers.

"I'm with a team of people that felt this was very important," Jeannette said. "It means the betterment of our city and we're here as residents to make our city better and we want to have the answers, and we want to know how we go forward."

Through the side office egress, city officials could be easily viewed because the conference room where they deliberated, maybe 15 yards away, was closed off not by walls, but by large glass. Jeannette and others in the small office often remarked on their facial expressions in an effort to gain whatever little hints possible into the meeting's trajectory.

Duran earlier had even sought from attendees to gauge whether they could hear anything happening behind closed doors. No one said they could.

Under the Brown Act, closed sessions to discuss pending litigation are allowed to be held at the office of the city's legal counsel to reduce fees or costs. Duran said they had first discussed the ongoing legal wrangle with the now-defunct High Desert Mavericks and that the city saved money that would otherwise have been spent on he and Golds traveling to Adelanto.

It was the second time that the Council had convened in Ontario — the first was last year to address ongoing workplace harassment lawsuits brought by three former employees.

But even though allowed by law, the Ontario conference struck sour notes among at least the trio of Jeannette, Waggener and Delgado, who lamented accessibility issues. When asked why Adelanto was a more preferred location for such a meeting, Delgado was succinct: "Because it's our hometown."

"We're not talking to the officials over here in Ontario, we're talking to the officials in Adelanto," he said. "Why are we coming all the way over here? Let the people have their say, let the people do what they need to do, you know? But the way we're being treated is terrible, terrible."

Citing the sense that the Council was believed to be deadlocked on an Elliott decision before it was announced that, essentially, they were, Waggener suggested that a topic of this magnitude should be undertaken in City Hall.

"I believe, now that we know what is on the agenda, what is before us, what I believe to be a 2-2 split," he said, "why isn't it back home where more people can (participate)?"

To be fair, closed sessions would be more secluded from residents in Adelanto, where officials meet upstairs out of view. But anyone who showed up to council chambers would also be allowed to make public comment before the session and wait for Duran to announce any actions after the fact.

The Ontario session was not recorded so any residents back home were not privy to any public comment or announcements before and after it. Duran did say he planned "out of courtesy" to report the closed session results — which turned out to be none — during the next regularly scheduled meeting in Adelanto on Wednesday.

But to the extent that the meeting in Ontario was meant to squelch the voices of any residents unable to travel that night into the Inland Empire, Duran said, "Not the intention at all."

Shea Johnson at 760-955-5368 or SJohnson@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DP_Shea.

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